


silently drawn by the strange pull

by hurricant



Category: Rent - Larson
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Cheating, Male-Female Friendship, Withdrawal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-28
Updated: 2016-05-28
Packaged: 2018-06-09 03:36:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6888283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hurricant/pseuds/hurricant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Are you in love with Joanne?”<br/>“Oh my god, Roger, you just said you don't believ—“<br/>“I’m not asking you to commit your whole life to her, I’m helping you come up with an excuse.”</p><p>[or: Maureen has been cheating and Roger figured it out first.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	silently drawn by the strange pull

**Author's Note:**

> This was actually the first thing I had written when I started working on "from beginning to no-matter-how-it-ends", but it got too long to be included as a short bit of a larger chapter, so here we all are.
> 
> tl;dr- Maureen Johnson is a work of art and her and Roger are nothing short of absolutely ridiculous when they are together.

Letting out a frustrated groan at the unexpected touch of cold metal, realizing she had accidentally swiped Joanne's watch, Maureen figured she'd pull it out and at least check the time. 11:03. It usually took a bit for her to recognize where the hands belonged on the navy blue face of the clock and why didn't Joanne buy watches with numbers instead of dashes? However, today Maureen got it the time right on the first try. She supposed that was something, and she slid it back into her faux leather pocket.

11:03 was earlier to be heading home than her norm these days, admittedly, and the thought of having someone see her upon her return tonight should've caused her more alarm, she felt. Clutching her coat a bit tighter to her as the air grew into its true November self, Maureen reminded herself that Mark thought she had been working late tonight on some protest posters for a nameless cause, and Roger would probably be asleep, or as good as. She could easily creep inside, shower away any remaining evidence, and tip-toe into bed like she had just been hanging out with some of the gals from the women's shelter tonight. Running through the game plan in her head, she was confident, skipping steps on the way up to the loft. Opening the door, she realized she was 0 for 2—Mark was nowhere in sight and Roger was sitting cross-legged on the floor, thumbing through what was left of his once overwhelming record collection sitting on the bottom row of the bookshelf.

“Hey,” he said, hoarse, though sounding a bit more alive than the empty stares and shrugs and grunts and I supposes she had grown accustomed to recently. Maureen consciously maintained a steady breath, figuring that it was just Roger—which definitely held an ambiguous connotation these days, sure, but on the whole, nothing to be afraid of, right?

“Hi.”

“Did you guys sell my copy of _La Traviata_ or did I?”

Maureen blinked. “What?”

“ _L_ _a Traviata._ The opera. Did I sell it for drug money or did you guys sell it for food money?”

See? Operas. Nothing to be afraid of. “Ask Mark, since I have absolutely no idea what you’re even talking about.”

“Mmm. Alright, sure.”

Maureen decided to run in this direction instead, maybe. Play it cool, Maureen. “Has this been your whole night?” She asked, gesturing to the stacks of records and CDs and tapes on either side of her roommate.

“Yeah—I'm trying to figure out what of my belongings I still actually own. How’re those posters coming?”

“Good!” She answered too fast. “Great! Awesome!” Too fast for the pace of their conversation. Roger nodded, and she felt like she was waiting.

[Looking back on this several months later, she thought it was kind of funny but also vaguely concerning, how much she and Roger acted very much like kids at this particular moment. Maureen waiting like the last cookie from the jar was hidden behind her back, and Roger deciding to let her wait in her obvious discomfort because secrets secrets are no fun, secrets are for everyone.]

[And wait.]

[And wait.]

[Or so it felt, anyway.]

“How is she, then?” he asked, rather nonchalantly. Maureen’s heart sunk well into her stomach, shoving her sweating hands into her coat pockets, her left hand suddenly colliding once again with Joanne's watch.

“Which ‘she’? There’s a lot of girls at…”

Roger didn't miss a beat. “I mean the girl you’re seeing.”

Scoffing almost too dramatically, she tried playing catch up. “I have _no_ idea what you’re—“

"Maureen—"

"I can't believe you'd accuse _me_ of—"

“Maureen, save it. You smell richer than normal and you come home at the crack of Satan’s asshole every other morning these days and you have a _huge_ fucking hickey on your neck right now,” said Roger, slow and casual, suddenly turning to try to meet her gaze. Maureen averted, and found herself with one hand at her neck and the other fumbling with the watch as he sat on the floor and stared at her in silence.

[Waiting.]

[And waiting.]

[Maureen normally loved the spotlight, but today it was too hot.]

"I'm depressed, not blind," Roger shrugged. "And I have no reason to be in denial about things like Mark is."

Maureen stammered with a collection of Is, buts, and ands. This was ridiculous, acting this petulant, also having a hickey when she wasn't sixteen years old. “Why aren’t you mad at me?” she asked, voice becoming rather soft—god dammit Maureen, "ridiculous" meant _knock it off and act bigger_. “Like, I was expecting something to be chucked at my head for sure.”

Roger let out a long sigh, which Maureen found less to be disappointed in her and more so in himself. “I’m too exhausted,” he replied, still in an even tone. “Not that I was going to try to throw anything at you. I just need someone to help me get in the shower—Mark left a message from some phone booth saying he’d be late getting home tonight and I’m smelling kind of rancid, to be frank.”

[It had been two weeks since Roger’s return from the clinic in Brooklyn that she had found through the women’s shelter. Before he had left, any efforts to bring Roger into the bathroom (or, any efforts to get Roger to do anything), had been futile—one look at the pale grey tiles and he was ready to sprint back to his room. Collins and Mark had to physically drag Roger, kicking and screaming and clawing at the floorboards, shouting obscenities and disdain, to get him only so far as the door frame. You can’t do this to me, he had screamed. You can’t make me, please don’t make me, eventually turned to You seedy fuckers, I hope you die too. They eventually managed to reach some kind of settlement, the four of them sitting cross-legged on the floor in the hallway: the lights had to be off, to hide the stains, the water had to be cold, because he was already soaked in his own sweat, and finally, Roger could not be in there alone.]

[Rarely a crier herself, she had wiped Mark’s tears with her hands as the four of them sat in the dark, drained, listening to Roger sit and shake and weep in the tub and occasionally let out a whisper, a whimper, pained. I’m sorry, just let me die, let me die, I’m so sorry.]

Maureen nodded in response and shot out a hand to help him back to his feet. She slid her coat off and tossed it over the couch; Roger went to his room to grab a change of clothes, out of old track pants into more old sweatpants, sure, but it was something. Reuniting back in the small hallway just outside the doorway, when she had finally dare decided to look Roger in the eye, Maureen had seen instead of anger and disappointment, something akin to expectancy. Expectancy to explain herself, she assumed, but probably more likely, expectancy for her to lead the way, across the threshold of wood to tile. And so they went, Maureen first, taking a seat on the toilet, Roger just behind her, pulling off his sweatshirt.

Finally starting to gain some weight back, she had to admit Roger was suddenly starting to look a lot better too, although in the light of the bathroom, the bags under his eyes could've probably taken out the trash and the hair on his head seemed to have grown into a mind of it's own. Maureen wondered when exactly that happened, thinking back to how he looked just a few weeks ago.

[Halloween—they had gone as the same things they had worn in high school. Maureen pulled out her handy-dandy leather catsuit, Roger dodged the grim reaper robe for a more simple skeleton.]

Wrestling out of an old band shirt, Roger shot her a pointed look, thankfully not accusatory. “Are you just gonna stare at me while I take my clothes off, or…”

Maureen rolled her eyes. “Don’t flatter yourself, wise guy.”

Roger almost smirked. “I mean, because I’m not gonna stop you…” Almost.

“Would you just get in the shower?”

[A day after their initial agreement, they got Roger in the bathroom with the lights on, so they could shave the beard he had sprouted instead of trying to keep that clean as well. He had gone in, eyes shut, gaunt long fingers grasping a weary hold onto the safety of shirt fabric. If the lights were on, Roger’s eyes had to be closed. Why, she had asked. Roger whispered, tears sneaking past shut eyelashes, running into shaving cream. If I open them, I’m afraid I might see her.]

[He went to the hospital a few difficult days later on the date that would've been April's funeral in Pennsylvania, after Mark had found him laying in the corner of his room, needle in hand and eyes rolled back, barely breathing. Shortly after that, he was shipped off to rehab, craving smack, psychotic, now needing to detox from methadone—it was reserved usually almost exclusively for women and children, but Maureen knew some people, knew what to say and how to say it, which was always something.]

The elephant in the room sat next to Maureen in knowing silence; Roger hissed as the usual thirty seconds of hot water turned abrasively cold, as it had been doing regularly this last month or so.

"How did you know she was a woman?" Maureen asked over the sound of water falling, a few moments later.

"She called and left a message sometime after you left, like ten minutes before you got in. Something about her fancy watch," Roger called through the curtain, Maureen cringed. "You didn't steal it, right?"

"No!"

"Just checking!" Roger paused. "You're not seeing some kind of yuppie, are you? _That'd_ be hysterical..."

"No... I mean... she's a yuppie with morals, I guess you could call it."

"What's she do?"

"Civil rights lawyer. Loves it and is also constantly stressed about it. Helps single moms in Harlem, usually."

"Eh, alright, I can respect that."

[They had been close once—the three of them, meaning, despite all their inherent button-pushing, but her and Roger, absolutely. Prime example: they'd gone to a party their senior year of high school, Mark had said maybe the two of them should slow down a little bit, and they both looked at each other and down at their drinks and back at him with shit-eating grins with the same reply: well, I don't plan on dying healthy. Cheers.]

[Alright. bad example, bad example.]

[Better example: she knew it must've been annoying, but they had been friends for so long that when she and Mark had been tap-dancing around their blooming relationship, they had both, of course, gone to Roger with their side of the story. Roger was surprisingly okay at that kind of thing, whether it was artistic ideas or her relationship with Mark or anything else under the sun—being talked at and paying full attention, giving some rather blunt assessments where he could, occasionally poignant (occasionally, being the keyword, but regardless). Sometimes he needed a five-foot distance to morally support her more intense emotions, sometimes they were so excited about something that they would talk over one another, sometimes it was nothing but sarcasm for a day and a half. It had all felt like a thing she could trust him with, a thing that friends did for friends because you're friends and they communicate for the sake of communicating with one another and why didn't they talk like they used to anymore?]

[She didn't know why but she knew exactly why at the same time, and when herself, Mark, and Roger weren't quite "the three of them" anymore, for better or for worse.]

“So do you hate me?” she reiterated, after waiting a few more moments, hearing in reply another long, deep sigh.

“Maureen, look at who you’re talking too,” Roger paused. “Actually, don’t look. But seriously—where do I get off at being pissed at anyone right now, all things considered? I can't believe you don't hate me...”

Maureen could shrug in response to that one, granted, Roger probably couldn’t see her silent agreement through their curtain—a new one, to replace the old one, with rubber ducks on it, picked out by Collins the day after April's funeral. It didn't really match the rest of their dully shaded bathroom even vaguely, but Collins insisted, picking it out as his going away present, that it was something and it would do. 

“I mean, it was a bitch fucking thing to do, for sure.”

“Roger-”

“I kinda can’t believe you did this to fuckin’ Mark, of all people.”

“Rog-”

“But at the same time like, if Mark isn’t meant for you, why stay with him, y’know?" Maureen focused on the pitter patter of falling droplets. " ~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~If it’s not meant to be, then why bother dragging it out any longer than it has to go? It’s kind of cruel as shit to him and it’s not fair to you. And it’s definitely not fair to this other girl you’ve been seeing, but not seeing enough to be exclusive to.”

Roger shut the water off and Maureen tossed him a towel, hanging it over top of the curtain.

"However," he said, stepping out of the tub, one hand at the towel on his hip, one gripping the tiles of the wall for support.  "I'm not really mad at you, Maureen. I can't be."

Maureen almost laughed, but caught herself, averting her gaze past Roger into the beady black eyes of one of the rubber ducks. " _You_? Can't find something to be mad about in this situation? How tired are you?"

He shot her a look. "I haven't been sleeping well, it's been a rough week, but that's beside the point," said Roger, grabbing hold of a t-shirt that Maureen noticed looked almost two sizes too big. "I don't blame you. You and Mark might've had a chance, but look at the last year or so and tell me what exactly was working in your favor?"

See? Occasionally poignant.

[Things that were working in her and Mark's favor: good sex, a general sense of concern and care for one another, comfort in familiarity. Things that weren't working in her and Mark's favor: unpredictable junkie roommates, their deteriorating loft, their dying best friend shoving off to Boston all alone, artist's block, their communication style airing on the side of calculating and passive-aggressive even when there was nothing to be passive-aggressive about, as protection for the next, future, potential slight.]

"Maybe you two just weren't meant to be together."

"'Meant to be together'—come on, Roger, even I have to admit, that's a little much." Maureen broke gaze with the duck to hand Roger his sweatshirt, rising from her toilet seat.

"What is?"

"Meant to _beeee._ " Her voice was sing-songy as she batted her eyelashes, holding open the door for Roger as he dragged his feet behind her. "The stars being all aligned, _just so_ , in order to run into the person you were _destined_ to meet at a specific place in space and time because they're your _one true love_?"

Maureen knew that Roger knew her better, and he squinted at her, unamused. "You're skirting the issue."

"And you believe in _soulmates,_ Cinderella."

"Listen, if you don't wanna talk about this, I'm not gonna make you. I could really do without it."

"Fine," said Maureen, sinking into the musty old couch with the mismatched pillows, adjacent to the bookshelf, criss-cross, applesauce.

"Fine," said Roger, absolutely sinking in his new set of clothes, fixating intensely on a particularly dusty stack of tapes on the floor.

[Just like kids, as she would recall. Petulant, and seeking the upper hand.]

[Also like kids—curious and so unable to let tender topics settle.]

"Do you really believe in true love?" Maureen asked, biting her nails, nearing a whisper.

There were now two elephants in the room; Roger turned his head slowly to look at her, almost perplexed. “If you didn’t want to talk about this, why are you still asking about it?”  
  
“If you’re so tired, why don’t you just go to bed?” 

"I told you, I haven't been sleeping well, I might as well pretend like I accomplished something today," he muttered, holding up the cassette tape in his hand. The Runaways. "What's your excuse?"

She shrugged. "This is the most we've talked in ages."

[Maureen knows what to say and how to say it, sometimes.]

Roger's gaze immediately softened. "You just like talking about yourself," he said, almost sardonic. "Even when, frankly, you still haven't admitted you fucked up."

Oh shit. Maureen groaned, closing her eyes hard and tight until she could see dancing stars. "Roger—what have I done? What am I going to _do_?"

"You cheated on Mark; you should probably tell Mark," said Roger flatly.

"Do you think he'll hate me?" 

" _Nooooo._ "

"Really?"

Roger shook his head, wet locks flopping and curling. "No way. He's _Mark_. Totally whipped. He can be real bitter but he's not ever gonna get as mad as he deserves to be, probably, and won't stop caring about you."

"Are you sure?"

"Oh, I'm sure." And she supposed that was, at least, something.

[The months of just her and Mark at the loft felt, if anything, humid. She hadn't had an asthma attack since middle school, honestly, but took very little imagination to remember how heavy and harsh her chest felt before the moment of panic where she could not breathe. Every day it was something else for them: jobs lost and gained, money saved and wasted, families calling and screening, creative ideas mentioned and shot down, fights forgotten and drawn out, fights over nothing and everything, no fights at all, nothing at all, except fucking, or else laying side by side without touching. Most of those months should've been consoling, a break from their hellish winter and spring, and many days, weeks had been fine, good even, but many had been more of a biting purgatory, without the promise of heaven on the other side to keep with it.]

[She didn't like talking about _Mark_ this way, she didn't like talking about herself this way, she didn't like talking about it at all. Roger should've known as well as anyone how much easier it was to fall into the sweet, strong arms of someone or something else in the back corner of a dimly lit bar than it was to navigate her—their—issues.]

Maureen nodded, near in time with the _click, click, click_ of one plastic tape case against another. Iggy Pop, Mahler, Bad Brains, Tchaikovsky.

"Can I see the watch?" asked Roger, almost impish.

"The watch?" Maureen said slowly, piquing an eyebrow.

"Yeah, your girlfriend's watch. It's gotta be pretty fancy if she couldn't wait to get it til the next time you see each other."

Rolling her eyes, Maureen grabbed her tossed-aside coat, reached into the pocket, and grabbed the shiny gold watch from her pocket, watching Roger's eyes widen at the sight. He let out a weak, albeit amused snort as she placed it gingerly in his hand. "Oh my god, Maureen. She's fucking loaded."

"I know. She's a lawyer, she's not making nothing."

"I completely understand why you cheated now."

Maureen laughed. "It's not about the money, Roger," she replied, glibly.

"Then what is it about, Maureen?" His expression went from sportive to speculative, and Maureen, recalling to herself that yeah, she was a cheater, realized she had waltzed straight into this question. Their elephants were having tea now; Maureen's elephant couldn't seem to shut up, hot and nervous. 

[The same since high school, just like children.]

Rolling the metal around in her hand, she stopped long enough to check the time. 11: 35. First try again.

[And waiting.]

"I'll make you a deal," she said, voice sparkling.

" _No deals_ ," replied Roger.

"Come on, it'll be fun! You answer my question, I answer yours. Simple!"

"Isn't this a little juvenile?"

"Aren't _you_ a little juvenile?"

" _Rude_."

"See, that's two questions, right there!"

"Do I get to go first?"

"Nope, I do. Ladies first," Maureen smiled. "I want to know where this 'meant to be' nonsense came from. I'm dying to know."

Roger grimaced. "That's not a question."

" _Come ooonnn_. Do you, Roger Davis, really believe in true love?"

"No," he replied, blunt.

"Really? Do you believe in love at all?"

[Valentine's Day—Maureen with Mark, Roger with April. Today—Maureen technically with Mark, Roger hallucinating April.]

"No. That's two questions, so I get two. My turn," Roger held out the watch to Maureen, returning it to her carefully. "What’s ‘er name?”

“Joanne.”

“Are you in love with Joanne?”

“Oh my god, Roger, you just said you don't believ—“

“I’m not asking you to commit your whole life to her, I’m helping you come up with an excuse.”

Maureen blinked. “What?”

Roger continued to look at her with expectancy, and now as she could clearly see, exhaustion. “Look, you feel obligated to stay with Mark and I, because of... everything. That’s fair, it’s not unappreciated—really. But you’re also fucking miserable here and fucking lying to him— _do not_ look at me like that because I know it's true," he yawned.

"So what am I supposed to do? Act the evil girlfriend?" Maureen argued, rolling, fidgeting, rolling around the watch in her hand. "Am I supposed to just run off into the sunset with some rich lawyer and leave Mark on his ass, alone?"

Always pointed questions, never missing a beat, Roger asked, “What, so I don’t count?”

“That’s not what I meant—“

“Look, staying with me is no vacation, I’m sure, but do you really think you’re doing him a favor by, I dunno, flirting with randos when you guys actually go out together?"

"We _do not_ go—I do not _flirt_ wit—" she sputtered. 

He continued. "Or coming in at weird hours, with messages on the answering machine from your 'honey bear' about how you swiped her watch and she wants it back?"

Honey bear. Maureen cringed, noting suddenly, that the elephants seemed to be gone. "You're right," she said, nodding. "You're right it's not good. No one's happy."

Roger almost gave the look Mark tended to give—the well fucking duh look—but again, only almost. “So, be honest, are you just fucking around or are you in love with Joanne?”

[Things that were working in her and Joanne's favor: better sex, a sense of concern and care for one another that neither infantilized nor ignored, excitement in new things that were so unattached to the rest of her life, getting to be someone else who was also her but who she actually liked with someone she actually liked, and not just "loved". Things that weren't working in her and Joanne's favor: Maureen's boyfriend.]

"Yeah."

"What was that? I didn't quite catch it..." Roger mimicked putting a hand up to his ear, and leaning in closer from his seat on the floor.

Maureen inhaled slowly. "I am in love with Joanne. I love her. I want to be with her."

Roger nodded. "Wow. Groundbreaking," he said, droll, and instead of being annoyed, Maureen just laughed. "So what're you going to do?"

[Waiting.]

[And waiting.]

[And waiting.]

Maureen grabbed her coat off the arm of the couch, sliding Joanne's watch back inside the pocket. "I dunno," Roger's brows furrowed; Maureen tried again. "I mean I know what I should do, I know what would be  _the right thing_ to do but I—it's like—I feel _guilty_."

"Wow. That's a first," said Roger, Maureen snatched the pillow immediately beside her and hurled it at him. "No, no, no—really, that's probably good! It's like, progress."

Getting a good look at it, now on the floor, it was the pillow she had tried stitching 'home is where the pants aren't' onto, before she'd gotten good at sewing. "Oh what, so you go to therapy for a few months and suddenly you're fucking Freud?"

Roger's eyebrows went up into his hairline. "I'm fucking Freud?"

" _Stooop_. You know what I was saying—"

"Hell, I'd fuck Freud if he was giving me watches that looked like _that_ ," he gestured in the direction of Joanne's watch. 

"You're a child. And you asked way too many questions and cheated on your turn, you cheater," she whined. 

"I'm a lot of things, but I thought you were the cheater."

[Mark could've logically had an inkling about Joanne. He didn't, but as Roger clearly showed, it wouldn't have taken a lot to sit down and think hey, my supposedly flirtatious and attention-seeking girlfriend could supposedly also be a huge dyke. Mark was smart. Mark knew her well. Joanne, on the other hand, had no idea about Mark, or Roger, or even Benny and Collins. This leap she was taking to be with her, Maureen wondered if it would be fully understood when Joanne had been left in the dark as to how far exactly the jump was. So much of her and Mark these last few months had been sitting in the dark, side by side but still alone, and she wondered if her relationship with Joanne would turn into that just as quickly.]

[It was weird when these sort of realizations hit her before she was mid-air, mid-vault. She hated it.]

Looking a little guilty for his choice of words, Roger tried again. “I’m telling you this as a _liar_ , Maureen, and as a friend: you fucked them both over, so go own up to it, and get the hell out of dodge and enjoy your goddamn life while you still have it."

Maureen bit the inside of her cheek, the idea of escape rolling around in her mind like a marble. "Why do you care so much?"

[Well, I don't plan on dying healthy. Cheers.]

"I don't, really," he answered too quickly again. "We just started talking about it, and now we're here, I'm just returning the favor for you helping me in the bathroom. Plus, if you don't tell Mark, I'm probably gonna let it slip, be it accidentally or intentionally."

"For a liar, you're really bad at it," Maureen laughed, picking pills from the couch cushion. 

"At least I don't get hickeys at 23 years old."

"Wow. So much attitude, considering how much you love me."

"What?"

"You. Looove. Me. You're being nosy because you care about me. And Mark, definitely Mark. You love us so much, you just don't wanna admit it."

Roger rubbed his eyes. "Wow. Some psychoanalysis you got there. Too bad it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out you queers are all I have left, apparently, because I still can't find _La_ fucking _Traviata_."

"Mark's straight," said Maureen.

"Pffffft. _Okay_. Just like you, huh?" Roger almost laughed, a little more genuine now.

"Rude."

[Click, click, click.]

[And waiting.]

[The spotlight turned off now though, Maureen felt nothing short of relief, strangely, until she really started to think about what was ahead.]

"I'll make you a deal," she said, suddenly. 

"Why deals?"

"If I break up with him, you need to start showering on your own."

Roger's face immediately deflated; Maureen, naturally, did not quit.

"He's gonna be distraught and you know it. The least you could do for him is figure out how to function a little less without him."

"I didn't ask for ask for him to mother me," Roger grunted. 

"Okay, but here he is anyway, right," Maureen sighed, moving on from fidgeting with the couch pillows to braiding and unbraiding her hair. "Just like, try acting casually these next few weeks. Shower. Find a normal sleep schedule. Eat. Go outside. Actually smile maybe. Consider picking up your guitar again?"

Roger shook his head. "It'll be unbelievably out of tune."

"It doesn't have to sound good, you just have to try," said Maureen.

[Maureen knew what to say and how to say it, sometimes.]

Looking like he was trying to start a sentence and failing after a few tries, Roger finally found the words: "I'll consider it."

She didn't think it was going to be awkward until she was already on the floor, arms wrapped halfway around Roger's neck for a hug that was admittedly a little too tight and a little too long. It'd been a while though, and Roger eventually hugged her back with bony arms. "Thanks," she said. 

[And waiting.]

[And done.]

"Yeah yeah," he replied, breaking the hold. "Go shower before Mark gets home, figure out what you're doing about your neck."

"Oh shit, you're right," and with a 1-2-3, she was back on her feet, socks sliding on hardwood floor back in the direction of her room. "Love you," she called.

"Love you too," she heard, a little distant, a little quiet, but still there between the sound of cassettes and records making their way back onto the shelf after a night of inventory.

[Maureen called a week or so after the break-up, only to be screened, hearing instead of their old answering machine spiel, a dull and droll speeeaaak. Roger picked up before she could even say her name, probably for Mark's own good. He asked about Joanne, about the move. She asked if he had made his way into the shower on his own, and he said gave a meek yeah. She asked about their new answering message. Roger said it was his idea on a particularly weird day for them, said it took a few tries, but Mark was into it, which was definitely something.]


End file.
